Mother’s knowledge and practices towards self-medication of fever among children under five years in Muncar Banyuwangi, Indonesia

Abstract

Introduction: Self-medication is the use of medicines by individuals to treat mild symptoms or minor illnesses. It can overcome minor ailments and complaints, such as fever. Fever is a sign of disease often suffered by children under five years. Knowledge and self-medication practice of fever must be mastered well by the mother to handle this symptom correctly. Aims: This study aimed to explore mothers’ knowledge and practices toward self-medication of fever among children under five years and the relationship between knowledge and practices. Method: This study was observational with a cross-sectional design. It involved 385 mothers from Muncar District Banyuwangi, Indonesia. It used a validated questionnaire to collect the data, including five categories, three for knowledge and two for practice. The relationship between knowledge and practice was analyzed by the Chi-square test. Result: The three categories of knowledge were good (83 respondents), sufficient (206 respondents), and insufficient (96 respondents), while the two categories of practice were good (213 respondents) and insufficient (172 respondents). The chi-square test yielded a p-value <0.001. Conclusion: This study revealed a significant relationship between knowledge and practice. Hence, the better the knowledge, the better the practice in fever self-medication.